Free Astronomy Magazine November-December 2016

SMALL BODIES diameter (about 2 meters) and a priori the composition (identical to the other frag- ments, 93% iron, almost 7% nickel and some other trace elements) it became clear that they had in front of them a weight re- cord. The verification showed that Gan- cedo had a weight of 30.8 tons, ranking third, behind Hoba and El Chaco. However, since the investigators kenwthat the last one was not weighed with absolute preci- sion, they decided to reweigh it with the same instrument used for Gancedo, discov- ering that it was actually definitely lighter: not 37 tons as it was believed to be, but 28.84 tons. Therefore, Gancedo is by all means the se- cond most massive meteorite ever found on our planet. But if instead we consider the entire mass that fell in Campo del Cielo, we are in the presence of the most massive meteorite shower in absolute, at T he photos and video of this page show some of the final stages of the recovery of the enormous meteorite Gan- cedo, the world’s second biggest one. [Instituto Turismo Chaco]